Slovak drone factory narrowly escapes Russian-linked napalm arson attack as police arrest three foreign suspects
Another stage in Russia's shadow war - targeting a Slovak drone factory. The planned arson attack is testing Nato's eastern flank and its defence industry.
Slovakia has recorded one of the first known attempted attacks on a company producing military technology. The target was to have been the Skyeton factory, which manufactures advanced surveillance drones near Prešov in eastern Slovakia.
“Officers from the ÚBOK anti-crime unit thwarted a planned arson attack on a production plant in eastern Slovakia,” police said.
Working with the intelligence services, they detained three foreign nationals, who were charged with preparing the particularly serious crime of “general endangerment”. One of them was detained in Germany.
“Two were detained in Slovakia, and a motion was filed to remand them in custody. The third was detained by German authorities under a European arrest warrant issued in an exceptionally short time,” police spokespersons added.
Police did not specify exactly which factory was to have been targeted, but said that criminal investigators from Prešov were handling the case and that it concerned a company with around 70 employees.
These details match Skyeton , formerly known as Tropozond, founded by Ukrainian entrepreneur Oleksandr Stepura.
He decided to invest in Slovakia under the previous government precisely in order to protect production from Russian attacks.
Vladimír Šnídl Is a reporter covering domestic affairs at Denník N. He studied political science at Charles University and worked for Hospodářské noviny and the weekly Ekonom before joining SME in 2014. In 2015, he became one of the founding editors of Denník N. He focuses on military procurement, transport, and disinformation, and is the author of "Truth and Lies on Facebook", a book about hoaxes and conspiracy theories online.
